Come a Little Closer (Kadia Club Nights Book 1) Read online

  Come A Little Closer

  Kadia Club Nights #1

  Nicole York

  BrixBaxter Publishing

  Contents

  Find Nicole York

  Description

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Want More?

  Insider Group

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Find Nicole York

  http://nicoleyorkbooks.com/

  Description

  I’ve lived beyond death more times than I can count.

  From the streets, to owning a club in New Orleans, to hustling drugs for the Chicago mafia, to this…

  The hottest nightclub with the darkest of sins in New York City.

  And my enemies are moving in. I can almost sense their shadows slipping closer.

  It’s no time for resting on my heels or falling in love.

  Besides, I gave that madness up years ago.

  This pretty little dancer has my eye though, and the woman is persistent if nothing else. She’s a single mom, so maybe that’s part of her tough-girl act.

  And she should be. We go way back to a time when I wasn’t so broken by the life I’ve chosen.

  She’s got no clue of the danger she’s trying to bed. She just remembers the good parts.

  Lucky for her, I still got all of those. But she should beware.

  Because if I like her the way I remember liking her, I’m not willing to ever let it go.

  Dedication

  To my friend, Keesha Robles, who has loved Marcus as long as I have. I know you’ve been waiting for this book to come out since we wrapped up the Bad Money series. I have too. When everyone voted for Jon to win Kate back in that series, I just cringed but went with it. I knew (and you did too) that one DAY (today!) Marcus would get his book and his love. Just thought I’d name her after you. Thanks for your years of support. Love you.

  Nicole York

  1

  Marcus

  The silhouette of a naked woman stood in an open doorway. She was backlit by a warm glowing light behind her that made the edges of her silhouette almost fuzzy—like how Christmas lights looked if you squinted your eyes at them. One arm rested above her head, her elbow gently placed upon the frame and her arm bent so her forearm and wrist draped seductively over her head. The other hand sat upon her hip.

  She was all angles and curves.

  And sex.

  Her ankles were crossed and Marcus didn’t know how long he’d been staring at her. What might have been a couple minutes could have easily been a couple hours. There was something about her that pulled him in. Something familiar, dangerous, and powerful.

  He knew her.

  Marcus lay upon a silk sheet pulled tight across a firm mattress. There were no blankets upon the bed and he didn’t notice he was naked until he glanced down at himself and spied his own cock resting firm and full upon his stomach.

  This woman was teasing him and she hadn’t even set foot in the room yet.

  His lips parted to call out to her but no sound escaped his throat. He was paralyzed, rooted to the bed by a force he could not see.

  The woman let her arm fall from the doorframe. She stepped into the darkness of the room and abandoned the lights in the hallway at her back. Her silhouette became consumed in shadow and Marcus had to strain his eyes to follow her movements as she approached the end of the bed.

  She stopped there, both fists now planted on her hips, and stared down at him.

  His cock twitched and his breath hitched in his throat. He wanted to ask her who she was. Hell, he wanted to ask where they were.

  This place was entirely unfamiliar to him. The darkness made it impossible to see anything but the woman, and all of his other senses felt muted. The sheets beneath him were slippery smooth and offered no contrast. The rest of the room bled away into nothingness. He couldn’t make out the corners or the walls, let alone any furniture in the place.

  All there was in this room, was the woman and the smell of cinnamon and spice.

  The mattress creaked softly when she planted a knee upon the end of the bed and then another. Slowly, she crept up the mattress on all fours.

  Marcus remained still as she crawled up and over him to settle with her thighs resting against his hips. She was strong. That much was certain. The smell of cinnamon grew stronger as she leaned over him, the ends of her dark hair kissing his chest and tickling his flesh, her eyes glinting in a light that did not exist.

  Marcus closed his eyes.

  The woman’s lip brushed against his. They were soft, full, and supple. He ached for more and lifted his head from the mattress, but she pulled back. He could not decipher if she was hesitant or fucking with him.

  A soft, merciless sigh left her and he knew it was the latter.

  The woman gripped his chin and forced his head to the side. He didn’t resist. She leaned in closer, her cheek grazing his, and moved to his ear, which she pinched between her teeth before she worked her way down the side of his neck with soft bites and wet kisses.

  Lust consumed him.

  The woman’s lips moved to the front of his throat and his Adam’s apple. He was entirely vulnerable beneath her. If she were an enemy, of which he had many, she could easily have slit his throat right then and there and been done with him.

  It didn’t seem such a terrible way to die.

  The shadow woman brought her kisses down his chest and further still, inching down the length of his body to the cut of his hips, where she paused and rested atop him, her breasts squished between them.

  A purr of a laugh filled the room and she took his cock in one hand. Slowly, she worked him over.

  Marcus’s hands balled into fists. His shoulder blades pulled together and his spine went rigid.

  Who was this woman and why was she doing this to him? Where were they? In the club? In his office? In a sex room?

  Jesus. Had she slipped Zandra into his drink or something?

  Wild thoughts tumbled around his skull as he tried to make sense of what was happening.

  Her lips sealed over his cock, and any desire to riddle this mystery out melted away. His muscles relaxed and he settled into the mattress. He exhaled his worries as she moaned around his cock. The vibration in her throat had his eyes rolling back in his head.

  Marcus wished he could move. If he could, he would have reached down, gathered her hair away from her face, and held her down on his cock. He’d have rocked her hips and fucked her throat deep and hard and made her moan again.

  The woman came up for air, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and inched her way back up his body to lie on his chest and pepper his chin with kisses.

  “Stop thinking so much, baby.” Her voice filled the room and pulled memories to the front of his mind.

  Memories of a woman riding him for all he was worth. Memories
of a woman with a beautiful smile and a body made for sex and eyes he frequently used to get lost in.

  Memories of the woman he’d lost.

  “Kate?” He could hear the pain in his own voice as her name fell from his lips like the last drop of water from a dying man’s canteen.

  “Hush.” She placed two fingers upon his lips. “We don’t have much time.”

  His heart sank. “Is this a dream?”

  “Does it matter? You have me. So enjoy me.”

  Kate cupped his face in her hands and kissed him deeply. He resented that he still couldn’t move. All he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and hold her close before this moment slipped away from him for good. Her tongue slid between his teeth and explored his mouth. She moaned into the kiss and he responded in kind, crashing his lips against hers in an effort to make up for his inability to touch her.

  Kate tasted like cherries and champagne.

  She broke the kiss first and moved up to straddle him. She dragged the tip of her fingernail down the center of his chest all the way to his navel. Goosebumps broke out across his skin and she giggled softly before reaching between her legs to take his cock in her hands and position herself above him.

  He pressed against her wet pussy and groaned.

  She paused. “Oh.”

  “What is it, Katie girl?”

  Someone knocked on the doorframe. Marcus tried to peer around his woman but couldn’t see. Kate twisted and looked over her shoulder.

  “I need more time,” she told whoever stood out in the hallway.

  A distinctly familiar male voice responded. “We don’t have it. It’s time to go, Kate.”

  Marcus knew that voice.

  Jon.

  The cop who had taken his Kate away from him in the first place.

  No, Marcus thought sharply. Not yet. We need more time.

  Kate rocked her hips but released his cock. She braced herself with her hands on his chest and leaned over him. “I have to go,” she whispered.

  “He can wait,” Marcus said.

  She ran her knuckles over his cheek and then turned her hand to press her palm to his jaw. Her fingertips danced like feathers along his chin and throat. “I’m sorry, Marcus. It was sweet while it lasted, wasn’t it?”

  Kate bent over him. Her hair fell like a curtain around them as she kissed him one last time. It was over all too soon. She sat up, slid off of him, and left the bed. Her footsteps were silent on the floor as she walked languidly to join Jon at the door. They both melded into one dark silhouette when he wrapped an arm around her waist.

  Jon pulled her away. Kate caught the doorframe and called Marcus’s name. “Take care of yourself, baby. A storm is coming. You can feel it in your bones. It’s not worth dying for. Promise me?”

  Marcus’s jaw worked, but again, no sound came out.

  “Promise me?” Kate asked again. Her voice sounded farther away this time, like she was calling out to him from the end of a long, narrow tunnel. She asked him one last time, but her voice was more of an echo.

  Jon pulled her away and the bright doorway stood empty at the end of the bed.

  Marcus stared into the light and willed her to come back to him.

  But she was gone.

  Marcus sat bolt upright in bed with a rabid hiss. His sheets, which were most definitely not silk, were damp with sweat and suctioned to his back and his legs like the tentacles of an octopus. He tore the covers off as a string of foul curses left his mouth. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward to rest his forehead in his hands.

  “What the fuck was that?” he growled at his bedroom floor. It held no answer for him, which did nothing to appease his frustration and pent-up lust. He had a hard-on for the ages. Whenever Kate visited him in his dreams, he’d wake like this. Startled, irritated, and too fucking horny for his own good.

  Shouldn’t he be past this shit by now?

  Kate had been out of his life for years. Not months. Not weeks. Years. And in those years, he’d lived the life he always wanted to spare her from. Crime, danger, and bad men like Adam Cooper were always going to be lurking in the shadows, and letting Kate go had been for her own good. He knew that.

  At least, he knew the logic of it all.

  Marcus massaged his chest with the knuckles of his left hand just over his heart. “Get out of my head, Kate.”

  She might appear in dreams conjured by his head but the memory of what they were and what he’d had resided solely in his heart—a heart many folks who knew Marcus would claim did not exist.

  He stood from the bed and the damp sheets peeled off the back of his thighs. It was nearly six in the morning, which was an early start for a man like him who worked exclusively night shifts, but he doubted he’d find enough peace to be able to fall back asleep for a few hours. Not here.

  Not alone.

  So he padded across the cool hardwood floors of his bedroom and went into the bathroom. He turned the shower on and stepped beneath the rain head mounted in the tiled ceiling. This was by far the most luxurious loft Marcus had ever lived in, courtesy of his boss Dimitri Demarco. So long as Marcus was on the payroll, this palace was his to enjoy.

  Being a member of the Castaletta Syndicate paid, and it paid well.

  The water scalded his shoulders and bald head. He closed his eyes, ran his fingers over his scalp, and tilted his head back to let the water strike his face. Soon, the burn faded to a dull throb and the blood beneath his skin stirred to life.

  Marcus reached down and took his still rock-hard cock in one hand. He stroked himself and kept his eyes closed and didn’t fight the imprinted memory image of Kate’s silhouette walking toward him from the hallway to the end of the bed. Her hips swayed and her tits bounced, and by the time she’d made it close enough for him to make out her dark lashes and cunning eyes, his teeth were clenched, and so was his ass, and his cock was throbbing in his hands, pulsing as he shot lashes of come on the shower floor.

  The memory dissipated and the running water sounded louder in his ears.

  2

  Keesha

  Robert held Keesha’s daughter in one arm as she leaned in to kiss the tip of the little girl’s nose and pinch her side playfully.

  “You be good for Uncle Robert, okay?” Keesha told her daughter.

  Beth scrunched up her nose and giggled delightedly at her mother’s affection. She made no promises to take it easy on Keesha’s brother, who gave her a bounce where she sat in the groove of his elbow so she could wrap one arm around the back of his neck.

  “We’ll have a fun day,” Robert said. “Don’t worry about us. You sure you don’t want a ride to work? You don’t have to take that damn bus, Keesha.”

  Keesha shrugged and gave Beth a couple more kisses. One for each plump rosy cheek. “I like the bus. It gives me a chance to read my book or just, you know, be alone with my thoughts. It’s kind of like self-care.”

  “That’s sad, little sister.”

  “And I would argue that’s a matter of perspective. I don’t get much alone time, okay? I’ll take it where I can get it. And today, I can get it on the bus.” She hopped down the three front steps on the stoop of Robert’s townhouse.

  It was the first home he’d ever purchased and he’d lived there for a few years already. It wasn’t very big, but it was comfortable, and the neighborhood was friendly and full of young families. Children often rode their bikes and skateboards through the looping lanes of the subdivision, often ending up outside Robert’s house on sunny days when the garage was open and he was inside working on his baby—an old fastback.

  He turned more heads than just that of the mechanically inclined children, too.

  There were some women who had eyes on him and had ever since he moved in. Keesha tried to tell him that there was interest around him when he first settled into this place but he’d dismissed it as his sister poking fun at him. When women started showing up with casseroles on Friday nights after noticing
he was a bachelor, he acknowledged that maybe his little sister was onto something after all.

  Still, he hadn’t incited anything with his female neighbors. He kept to himself and that was his nature.

  Worked for Keesha. It meant she had a built-in babysitter who wasn’t likely to expose Beth to any strange women for his own purposes.

  Robert talked to Beth, who giggled when he blew a teasing raspberry on the side of her neck. They waved goodbye and Keesha hurried out of the subdivision and on to the main street around the corner, where she sat at the bus stop two blocks down. Cars went past in blurs of white, black, blue, red, and yellow taxis. She crossed one leg over the other and tilted her head back to face the morning sun.

  It smelled like a concrete jungle.

  When she first left New Orleans for New York City, she’d hated the smell of pavement, car fumes, cigarettes, and fast food restaurants. But now? She wasn’t so sure. It was starting to smell like home. And she could more easily pick up on the scents she liked, like freshly mowed grass and that Thai restaurant up the street from her salon.

  It was all a matter of perspective as far as Keesha was concerned.